Gold and silver: Fed minutes fundamentally boost technical bounce

Gold and silver have moved off their recent one-month lows mainly on account of technical bounce, helped by the dovish bias in Wednesday's Fed minutes has helped.

Both the metals have failed to break through downside barriers of the upward channels they have been keeping since November.

The yellow metal touched as low as $1197, its lowest since 5 January, before reversing direction on Wednesday. It traded at a high of $1221 on Thursday before easing to $1218.

Silver had fallen to $16.23, its lowest since 8 January, before rebounding to $16.74 by Thursday.

The minutes from the January 27-28 FOMC meeting showed the policymakers are concerned if US economic growth will be good enough to offset the impact global weakness. The Fed was equally worried about falling inflation expectations in the US.

Such concerns will delay the likely rate hikes by the Fed, weakening dollar and strengthening other assets like precious metals.

The FOMC debated the impact that stubbornly low inflation measures were having on the central bank's confidence in moving ahead with the rate hike plan, the minutes showed.

For gold, the $1227-$1238 zone will be the main resistance level immediately where both the 14-day and 50-day moving averages meet.

A break of that will take it to $1251-$1255 ahead of the January high of $1307 although $1280 can be an intermediate level to consider.

On the downside, a decisive break of $1200 is necessary to confirm further downside and such a fall will take the metal to $1131, the November low, though $1160 will be a level worth considering ahead of that.

For silver too, the meeting point of the 14-day and 50-day moving averages that comes near $17 ahead of $17.31. Then comes $17.83 before a retest of the 21 January peak of $18.48.

On the downside, $16 seems a good support for the time being, and as long as that holds, upside risks will remain for the white metal. Then comes $15.50 ahead of the November low of $15.03.

More economic data from the US confirming the worries of the Fed will weaken the dollar further and boost the technical bounce of gold and silver.